Why Whisper, when you want to Stay Free?

Some Mobile Agent : “Bhaiyya, company wale keh rahe the ki agar recharge nahi karaoge to number band kardenge”.

Uncle (chewing tobacco): “Aise kaise band kardenge b*******! Aaj kal kamai to hoti ni hai is kaam se , aur keh rahe hain ki number band kardenge b******* !!”.  :out loud…..“Haan, madam aapko kya chahiye?”

Me: “Uncle, Stayfree hai kya bada wala?”

Uncle: mouthshut: (Just nods head in affirmation and brings out the bigger pack in black polythene.)

Other Customer (smoking): Rolls his suspicious eyes at me.

Me: “Ye wala nahi, large wala”

Uncle: ::mouthshut: (Nods head in denial)

Me: “Thik hai uncle”

 

After returning home, empty handed, first of all I just sat down, then I broke into this horrible streak of laughter. My GOD, HEIGHTS of HYPOCRISY!!!!

With my grandma at home, I asked her why are people so reluctant at even taking “it’s” name, and if she ever went to purchase it herself. She said that once she had to go, where she just wrote on a paper (self-made prescription letter) and passed that to the chemist.

I, being a single child, always had to go shopping for this stuff alone. So, during graduation when I met girls who preferred lady shopkeepers to buy sanitary napkins, I was shocked.

I always wondered that why do people make it a big deal. Why not just ask for it as normally as a packet of medicine? Guess, this awkwardness is mutual. If women will shy away from asking for it or even if they have to, will say it in their lowest volume, the owner will also have to wrap it like draupadi’s saree, covered in layers of paper and essentially black polythene.

In the age, where condoms are exhibited in the front shelves of medical stores, we are still struggling to ask for our dear friend, pad. Not saying that condoms are not a basic need.

But, seriously, shopkeepers keep this stuff to sell, so why not be a happy customer to them? Think about those people for whom sanitary napkins are a luxury. According to a study, only 12% of menstruating women can afford to use sanitary pads in India.

Other unfortunate women have to use things like ash, newspapers, old fabric, cow-dung, etc. There are so many initiatives like these being taken by different organizations. The first one being taken by Arunachalam Muruganantham, who in order to help her wife and mother, started a menstrual revolution in India in 1998, which in turn helped thousands of women to have access to low cost pads and better menstrual hygiene. Ramon Magsaysay award winner, Anshu Gupta, truly deserve all the praise for taking the initiative of making low cost sanitary napkins, and even before that, availing underwear which holds the pads, for the poor women in rural areas, starting in 2004-05. Their trash-based model surely helped all and continues to benefit a large part of rural India.

Gradually, things are improving, with youngsters becoming more open about it. But, our mothers and aunts still need to get rid of these inhibitions, as there won’t be someone always there to help them in this regard. Even if they are not in a position to go themselves, women shouldn’t hesitate in asking their sons and brothers to get it for them. Thanks to the education system these days that a great sense of awareness is being spread about such things. But still there is a large section of society for whom talking about such natural process is a taboo.

I am sure many of the girls of my age and above wouldn’t have come to know about such process before actually experiencing it. Yes, it was neither taught at schools, nor at home. The result, being a terrified 11-13 year old girl, who wonders what blasphemy, led her to this. It was fed into our brains that this is something which has to be kept a secret. You cannot utter the word- ‘period’. I have seen ladies who, sometimes have to take leave from their workplace or could not attend any function because of the pain, can’t even mention the actual reason behind it. At such times, the traditional cold and cough comes to their rescue. Isn’t that hilarious?

Recently, I found an article which describes how Kiran Gandhi, a common menstruating woman, ran London marathon pad-free, just to make people realize that the stigma attached to a woman’s period is completely irrelevant. She definitely deserves a pat on the back for her own different style of raising awareness regarding a much grave topic like this one.

I still remember how some years ago, one of my dear friends told me that, Gurudwara doesn’t discriminate against menstruating women. A woman can visit whenever she wants. She is not treated untouchable. I don’t have any capacity to wage a religious war in this matter, but my only point is that it is only the people who can write and re-write the rules.

I hope people don’t get confused with “sanskaar” in this matter, because, speaking out curse words in the open is definitely not “sanskaar”, but asking for basic stuff isn’t anything remotely against it.

So, friends, help those shy people around you to shed their inhibitions regarding these matters. So that they don’t feel shy in saying-

“Uncle, pad dena”,

“Uncle, condom dena”.

Image Credits: Sanitary Pad Is Shame Video By Prankbaaz